Most incidents are made worse by confusion, not by clever attackers. Two industry voices share what incidents taught them about access, suppliers and guardrails, and what UK, US and EU rules now expect.

Every fintech plans for a breach in theory. Far fewer have tested what happens in the first hour. Who can switch off a supplier’s access? Which person calls the payment provider? And who tells customers what is going on? As a result, fintech incident response often fails on basic questions long before it reaches anything technical.

So we asked industry leaders one question: if your fintech has dealt with a cyber incident or a serious near miss, what did it teach you about incident response that you would tell other founders? We wanted lessons over vendor pitches. Several respondents answered, and we have used two. Below, we set their replies against breach data and new reporting rules.

Fintechbits analysis

Why fintech incident response matters now

The threats that test fintech incident response are rising. Ransomware featured in 44% of breaches in Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, up 37% on the year before, according to Security Today. Third parties were involved in 30% of breaches, roughly double the previous level. Stolen credentials were the most common way in, at 22%, followed closely by exploited vulnerabilities.

Payments show how fast an attack spreads. In February, a ransomware attack on payment gateway BridgePay left merchants across the US taking cash only, Pulse reported. A forensic review found no card data was taken. Still, restaurants, utilities and online shops lost the ability to take cards. For any firm connected to that gateway, fintech incident response suddenly meant managing someone else’s outage.

Lost time, not clever hackers

Our first respondent runs an online apparel business that takes payments internationally. He was open that his company is not a fintech, but his lessons on fintech incident response apply to any firm that relies on payment providers.

“Know which applications, software, SaaS tools and payment providers can reach customer or payment data, and who is responsible for each one. Write it down. Then write down how to shut off access to each one in an emergency, and who to call at each company if you need to escalate. Review those documents every few months, so they’re still accurate and someone else could follow them.

Turn on two-factor authentication for as many applications as you can, especially email, because email is usually the key to everything else. Remove access to applications as soon as staff leave. And agree in advance who will talk to customers during an incident, and how you’ll give them timely, factual updates.

When I look at most near misses, it isn’t a sophisticated hacker getting in. It’s valuable time lost working out who has access to what, which passwords have been shared around the business, and who to phone at our payment provider.

We’re not a fintech, but we take payments online for our international apparel business and run a number of connected applications and providers. You don’t need an army of security experts behind you. You need organisation, documentation and discipline.”

Conor Smart, Director, Arklavo

His advice lines up with the breach data. If stolen credentials are the most common way in, two-factor authentication on email closes the door attackers use most. If third parties are involved in nearly a third of breaches, a current map of supplier access becomes the first page of any fintech incident response plan. His point on offboarding matters too. Accounts left open after staff leave are a common route for stolen credentials.

His test for fintech incident response documents is a good one. A plan only works if someone other than its author can follow it at 2am. Therefore, the strongest fintech incident response plans name people, phone numbers and shut-off steps, not just policies.

Guardrails beat good intentions

Our second respondent runs an IT and cloud services company in India. He shared two incidents that hold lessons for fintech incident response, and both began with ordinary problems rather than a targeted attack.

“We recently had two cyber incidents that I’d like to share with other fintech founders. In one, a developer pushed test scenarios to our production APIs instead of pre-production. The other was a known PHP vulnerability.

Both taught us that incident response isn’t only about fixing the immediate cause and containing the damage. The real question is how to design the system so it doesn’t happen again. My advice is to put stronger guardrails around production, because you can’t rely on people never making mistakes. Also automate the search for outdated dependencies, and keep the alerts going until each one is fixed.

If you’re building in fintech, good intentions aren’t enough. Build systems that protect your team from honest mistakes and catch security risks before they become incidents.”

Inder Singh, CEO, Geeks Solutions

His two cases cover the most common gaps in fintech incident response. He did not name the PHP flaw. However, attackers move fast on known bugs. In 2024, a critical PHP flaw, CVE-2024-4577, was widely exploited after disclosure, and CISA later warned that ransomware groups were using it, heise reported. Note that his company is a technology services provider, not a fintech.

His lesson for fintech incident response is to design for human error. Firms can require approval before code reaches production and separate test and live credentials. They can also run automated checks for outdated software, with alerts that keep firing until someone fixes the problem. In addition, every incident review should ask what system change would have stopped it, not only who made the mistake.

What regulators expect

Rules on reporting are tightening fintech incident response on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK, the FCA’s new operational incident and third party reporting rules come into force on 18 March 2027. They cover all authorised firms, including payment and e-money institutions. As a result, fintech incident response plans will need a clear owner for regulatory reports, not just technical fixes.

In the US, banks must notify their federal regulator within 36 hours of a significant computer-security incident. Fintechs that rely on a partner bank often face the same clock through their contracts, as our explainer on banking-as-a-service describes. In the EU, DORA requires an initial report on a major ICT incident within hours. Expanding firms also need to know which partner reports what, as our roundup on embedded finance compliance found.

Putting fintech incident response into practice

Taken together, the lessons point to a short order of work. First, map every system and supplier that can reach customer or payment data, with an owner and a shut-off step for each. Next, turn on two-factor authentication everywhere, starting with email, and remove access the day staff leave. Then agree who speaks to customers, partners and regulators. Finally, rehearse the plan, because a fintech incident response plan nobody has tested is only a document. For more on how fintechs use data to spot attacks early, see our report on AI fraud models.

What to watch next

Several deadlines will shape fintech incident response in 2027. UK firms have until 18 March to prepare for the FCA’s reporting rules. In the EU, supervisors will keep reviewing how firms classify and report ICT incidents under DORA. Meanwhile, ransomware groups continue to target payment gateways and their suppliers.

Above all, the lesson from our respondents is simple. Most incidents are not lost to clever attackers but to slow answers. Firms that know who has access, who to call and who speaks for them will recover faster.

FintechBits covers payments, banking and fintech developments for readers in the US and UK. This article is for information only and is not financial or legal advice. Views expressed are those of the FintechBits editorial team.